Who is the most balanced champ?

Meowmix86·8/12/2014, 6:18:27 PM·1 votes·1,662 views

The reason I ask is because I've been thinking about how to balance new/old champs more quickly. Rito has been going back and forth over and over with quite a few champs, so maybe this would be a good way to experiment with champ power level?:

Pick a champ that we all generally agree is pretty balanced, use it as a control.
1v1 every experimental champ against the control champ in lane using the same players, and adjust champ skills, etc. accordingly.

With so many random confounding variables in game, I feel like this would be the best way to generally quickly evaluate each champs skill set and power level.

EDIT: Btw the most balanced champ that comes to mind for me is Shyvana.

14 Comments

Sunfield8/12/2014, 6:27:33 PM2 votes

There is this thing called power budget that is set as a standard for every champion in the game, meaning if some parts of their kits are powerfull, the rest must be accordingly weaker. But looking at Yasuo, thats just theory that often fails tobe brought into practice.

Generaly a balanced champion is strong in certain situations and matchups, but has exploitable weaknesses and alloes you to fight back. He is not too snowbally and he has a fallback pattern in case he gets shut down really hard. I think Nasus would be pretty close to this definition, but you cant really set him as a standard to balance all champions. You cant pick a champion and balance around him.

Riot has tried it before with the Renekton Bar on top, but I dont see how it worked

TuxedoBadger8/12/2014, 7:18:15 PM2 votes

I feel like there are a few things that have an effect on balancing that probably aren't considered when people think about a champion being balanced.

The first is counters. Certain champions need to counter others. This forces players to consider who they well be laning against and adjust accordingly. If all champions were able to 1v1 each other evenly, the laning phase would be drawn out and boring.

The second thing that comes to mind is team composition and team coordinated skill. For example certain champions are picked and played differently in solo que than in ranked teams. For example, talon is a strong solo pick, but isn't picked as much in professional games due to how the enemy team well play against him. (Feel free to politely correct me if I'm wrong) different levels of play learn to use different champions to varying levels of effectiveness, and they have to balance champions to all levels of play.

The third thing is items. While all players have access to the same items, how you build your champion depends on the situation, how they scale with a certain item, how powerful this scaling makes them, and how effectively a player can react to their opponents build. For example, a glass cannon vs a well rounded build.

Balancing devs take these points and a LOT more into account when trying to balance a particular champion.

I'm typing this on my phone so I may or may not add more later.

Anarchomagus8/13/2014, 4:32:50 PM2 votes

right so the issue with this is that 1v1s are a lousy measure of balance. moreover, champions occupy distinct niches that exist not within a vacuum of numerical 1-on-1 balancing, but within a 5v5 context.

in addition, alot of the balancing concerns surrounding certain champions have literally nothing to do with their objective power level; this is most evident as champions that are almost totally untouched (trist, anyone?) for ages suddenly rise to prominence as the meta shifts around them. on the flipside you have champions like poppy that have incredibly powerful kits numerically but can't find a real home within the meta.

balance is a little too fluid to be pinned down through comparisons between champions, or even through more reliable statistics such as win rate. instead, riot balances around nebulous concepts like 'game health' and 'counterplay' that breed alot of debate in the player base, but are ultimately more conducive to a better gaming experience

i actually think this is a good thing, though the incredibly high frequency of patches keeps the meta from really settling (for better or worse)

ILoveTiramisu8/13/2014, 3:24:20 AM1 votes

-Most balanced champion is champion who take less nerf/buff from now. -Champion who has 50% win rate in every tier.

I think champion cannot be balanced, it depends from too much things, but you can understand if a champion is OP or UP.